Utah Tech dropped the opening game of its final Western Athletic Conference series of the season, 13-5, at Sacramento State on Thursday night at John Smith Field. 
 
With the loss, the Trailblazers (21-29/7-15 WAC), fell into a back into a tie with Seattle U (7-15 WAC) for the eighth and final WAC tournament spot. Seattle U picked up a 6-2 road win at UT Arlington earlier in the day in the first game of that three-game conference series.
 
The Trailblazers took a 1-0 lead on the strength of a 399-foot Petey Soto Jr. home run off the scoreboard in left center to open the third inning.
 
Unfortunately from there it was all Sacramento State (31-22/15-7 WAC), which answered with a two-out, three-run JP Smith homer in the home half of the frame.
 
The Hornets then blew the game open with four runs in the fourth, aided by two costly Blazer errors, to race out to a commanding 7-1 advantage. 
 
Utah Tech managed to get one of those runs back in the fifth, thanks in part to a pair of Hornet errors and singles from Kace Naone and Ryan Kroepel as Blazers trimmed the deficit to 7-2.

Trailing 11-2 in the eighth, Utah Tech mounted a late charge, spurred on by a pinch-hit, two-run Finnegan Stewart double. Stewart later came around to score on an Ethan Royal two-out single that made it an 11-5 game.
 
However Sac State quelled any chance of a Blazer comeback with two runs in the home eighth. The Hornets then kept Utah Tech scoreless in the ninth to cinch away the win and clinch the WAC regular season title.
 
Ten different Trailblazers recorded at least one base hit as Utah Tech wound up with 12 hits on the night. Kyle McDaniel and Hunter Katschke collected two hits apiece to lead the Blazers offense.

McDaniel's two hits also extended his school NCAA Division-I era record on-base streak to 36-straight games, and his current hit streak to nine-straight games. McDaniel's on-base streak now stands as the second-longest streak in Utah Tech's NCAA era overall (Tanner Morache – 39 games, 2016). 
 
The two teams will play game two of their three-game series on Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. (MT).